impecunious

American  

[im-pi-kyoo-nee-uhs] / ˌɪm pɪˈkyu ni əs /

adjective

1. having little or no money; penniless; poor.

   Synonyms:

   poverty-stricken, destitute

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impecunious British  

/ ˌɪmpɪˈkjuːnɪəs, ˌɪmpɪkjuːnɪˈɒsɪtɪ /

adjective

1. without money; penniless

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Related Words

See poor.

Other Word Forms

• impecuniosity noun
• impecuniously adverb
• impecuniousness noun

Etymology

Origin of impecunious

First recorded in 1590–1600; im- ² + obsolete pecunious “wealthy,” from Latin pecūniōsus, equivalent to pecūni(a) “wealth” + -ōsus -ous

Explanation

If you are hard up, broke, penniless, or strapped for cash, you could describe yourself as impecunious. Then maybe you could make some money teaching vocabulary words. Impecunious comes from the old Latin word for money, pecunia, combined with the prefix im, meaning not or without. But impecunious doesn’t just mean having no money. It means that you almost never have any money. If you go into the arts, you are most likely facing an impecunious future. If you gamble away your cash instead of saving it for rent, your landlord might throw you out for being impecunious.

Example Sentences

The first is the remarkable development of the anxious, impecunious and socially awkward Tennyson into the most celebrated poet of late 19th-century England.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 20, 2026

We’re not talking public or academic institutions, but what any impecunious collector vainly covets — an English country-house library or what Byers calls a “bookwrapt” study like that of Henry Higgins in “My Fair Lady.”

From Washington Post • Sep. 28, 2021

His grandfather was a servant, and his father, John Dickens, was an impecunious minor civil servant ultimately sent to the notorious debtors’ prison, Marshalsea.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 6, 2020

In my days as an impecunious young cineaste, there was the Tolmer cinema in Euston, the cheapest picturehouse in London, or anywhere – two shillings a time.

From The Guardian • May 15, 2020

She had no understanding of her husband’s work and, having been raised among the minor rural gentry, she despised his impecunious profession.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan